I was born on December 23, 1974 in Guadalajara, in
the state of Jalisco, in Mexico in the Hospital Guadalajara.
I was baptized on December 25, the day of our
Lord’s birth. My grandfather on my dad’s side was in
a hurry for me to be baptized, and in fact,
my mother was not able to go. Maybe that’s why
my grandmother decided to name me Juan Carlos, not only
because it was my grandfather’s name, but also because it
was in honor of St John the Baptist, who was
born shortly before Christ to be his precursor.

My
grandmother, who was so Catholic, had always wanted to have
a priest son. Some of her sons were in a
minor seminary, but they saw that it was not their
path. When my dad left after three years in the
seminary, my grandmother was very disappointed. My dad, to console
her, told her that first, it was better to have
a good married son than a bad priest son, and
second, that it was likely that after so many insistent
prayers to God, she would not have a priest son,
but she would have a priest grandson.

I am
the second of four siblings (Georgina, me, Paulina, and José
Antonio) and I am the first son, which sparked more
than a few arguments with my older sister about who
was the “firstborn” at home.

Family InfluencesI owe
my Catholic faith in the first place to my grandparents
on both sides, who gave us an example of true
piety and Christian charity. I remember that during Advent, we
absolutely had to prepare gifts, food baskets and blankets for
more than 800 needy people, which were then distributed by
my great-uncle, Mons. Agustín Gutiérrez, a priest of the parish

of Colinas de San Javier. Being at my grandparents’ house
meant going to daily Mass and praying the rosary in
the afternoon. Their library consisted only of various kinds of
bibles, spirituality books, and lives of saints. That was where
I got my love of reading and a great admiration
for the heroism of many saints.

My parents
were always concerned about giving us the best possible Catholic
education, and they made sure we went to Sunday Mass
and received the sacraments.

My dad was a medical
specialist in industrial medicine, and he worked for the government
in IMSS (Mexican Institute of Social Security). From him, I
learned constancy, dedication, and a sense of responsibility in taking
on duties that often required big sacrifices so that he
could keep being faithful to his vocation. My mother, in
the same way, taught us dedication to the family, human
dignity, order and cleanliness. Even though we had help at
home, we still had to clean our own rooms and
a specific area of the house that was entrusted to
our care. If we wanted permission for something, it was
an indispensable requisite for that area to be clean and
orderly first.

Childhood GracesBy God’s grace, in the same year
that I started primary school, I happened to be a
founding student of the Bugambilias Cumbres Institute, to which—and I
say it with pride—I partly owe what I am today.
There I also had the grace of getting to know
Father Carlos Mora, LC. He was the confessor at the
school, and he has always been a model priest for
me.

When I was little, I was an “introverted,”
calm child, not because I didn’t make friends, but because
I liked the tranquility proper to a good reader, and
I loved to imitate the serenity and charity of spirit
of the saints, which my grandparents were always bringing to
mind. I should confess that from time to time I
got tired and I blew off some steam in a
fight or two, or in “after-school activities” like play-fighting with
my best friends or breaking bottles by throwing stones at
them. On one occasion, I almost lost my thumb on
the right hand.

I remember a dream I
had when I was preparing for my first communion. I
dreamed that I was in a church and that there
were two lines: on the right were those who could
receive communion; and on the left, those who could not.
Those who were on the right were able to go
from receiving communion to a spot behind the altar, where
they were able to participate a bit in the life
of heaven. It was so impressive that I couldn’t resist
going up to receive communion. However, the priest was very
sorry to tell me that I could not yet receive,
and that I had to wait and earn merits in
order to participate in that happiness. I woke up crying
and asking God to make me worthy as soon as
possible.

After the grace of first communion, I
was left with a true enthusiasm in my heart to
make my confession and receive the Eucharist, and at the
Cumbres school we always had the opportunity to do so.
We could go to the communion service every day and
there were always confessors available during the week. That’s how
Father Carlos Mora and I got to know each other.
With him, confession was not so much a mea culpa
as it was an encounter with Christ, an embrace of
mercy. The priest truly knew how to put us in
front of Christ to humbly ask forgiveness for our faults
and to really desire to be in friendship with him
and never offend him again. That’s how I found what
I wanted to be.

In sixth grade, we
did a typical school assignment in which each kid says
what he wants to be when he grows up and
explains why. Without any hesitation, I wrote down that I
wanted to be a priest. My friends asked ironically what
motivated me to want that, since some of them preferred
money, success, and fame. For me, those things seemed too
mediocre to be desirable. Who could have more or be
more important than a minister of God himself? It was
difficult to explain it to them, but it was even
harder for me that they didn’t understand it.

My Path
Changes DirectionAnd so it happened that when I was
12 years old, I told Father Mora in confession. Of
course, with his great enthusiasm and faith in God, he
supported me in every way and invited me to a
vocational get-together. He himself offered to speak to my parents.
However, as I was there at the meeting, my father
left it very clear that I was very young, and
that my decision was based more on feelings than on
maturity. He also said that he saw me a bit
introverted and that I didn’t know the world enough to
be able to choose freely. Those words stayed engraved on
my mind. I didn’t understand very well what it meant
to know the world and be more extroverted, but if
that was what they wanted then I was going to
do my best to please them.

And instead
of looking for that quiet and serenity of spirit as
I had before, I began to look for more parties,
do more sports, and be part of a group of
friends. We tried to have a certain influence in the
school and put on the most interesting weekend activities possible.
There was a sudden, almost abrupt change. I started to
be very independent, but I also set up a code
of conduct for myself so that my parents and my
friends’ parents couldn’t say anything: respect the curfew, don’t cause
any scandals, don’t get into drugs or immoral activities, and
have a certain moderation with drinking. When I was 14,
I went to live with my grandfather on my mom’s
side, since my grandmother had died, and we were dead
set against my grandfather ending up in an old folks’
home. It was a three-month experiment that turned into five
years, which meant that I had a lot of freedom
and independence in my adolescence and youth, but I also
experienced the care that God and the Virgin Mary gave
me.

As time went by, I got to
know people from other schools. Boys with drug problems, premature
parents, students who went to school I the morning and
worked as mechanics in the afternoons, students who fought for
their scholarships at their universities or who started up businesses
in order to lift up their family. That was where
I discovered goodness of heart and tenacity in the fight
to be better, and on the other hand, what evil
can do to a human heart and how it can
infect more people. How much advice and help they asked
me for! Being close to these people that I wanted
to help gave me the reputation of being involved in
similar problems. It was inevitable that when I was at
a party or in a bar with my friends from
school, I would happen to meet one of my other
friends, and this sometimes gave rise to misunderstandings and rejections.

My little sister and one of my girl friends
supported me and gave me advice. I also relied a
lot on the priestly help that I received from some
Legionaries, and the fact that Father Mora always sent me
greetings and assurances of his prayers. That is where I
found that God never abandons us.

A Providential EncounterOne day,
as I was going to Mass with my grandfather, I
met a young Legionary who was going to celebrate Mass.
I had a homework assignment pending for school; it was
on the priesthood and I needed various slides on the
topic, so after Mass it occurred to me to go
up and ask him if he had any. He told
me that he only had photographs, and asked me where
I was studying. I told him that I was at
the Cumbres school, and asked him if he could please
greet Father Mora for me. I explained that I knew
him very well, that he had been my confessor, and
that as a boy I had wanted to be a
priest and that Father Mora had invited me to the
seminary.

Little did I know that I was talking
to Father Juan Pedro Oriol, a big expert in youth
work. Two days later I met him by chance at
school and he wanted to talk to me. Since I
already had plenty of questions, it wasn’t hard for me
to open them up to him. But it’s one thing
to say one’s problems and it’s another to be docile
to the advice. I certainly can’t deny that I really
needed God’s grace. As I started regaining the confidence of
one who knows he is loved by God, life wasn’t
just problems and setbacks anymore. Going more frequently to the
sacraments and the life of prayer made me remember the
serenity and goodness of spirit of those who live united
to Christ. It was like regaining the enthusiasm and joy
that I’d had as a boy, and this longing motivated
me to fight against my rebellion.

I thank
God for the tenacity of his ministers, especially of Father
Juan Pedro, who also put up with my defiance. It
wasn’t easy at all, and sometimes things got pretty hard.

Yes, I had it clear in my mind that
it was God who called me and was still calling
me, but my will strongly rebelled. I wasn’t accepting that
I had to bow my head. How was I going
to be obedient when I couldn’t even accept a suggestion?
But I think that Father Juan Pedro had more confidence
in me than I had in myself. He didn’t stop
writing me, calling me, or greeting me whenever he could.

The
Time Has ComeOne day he invited me to go
on a retreat during Holy Week of 1994. When I
got to Toluca, he told me without beating around the
bush: “Juan Carlos, it’s time to know what God wants
of you.” I was surprised and was about to act
like I always did, rebelling, but I knew that I
had to face the vocation question head on.

I
don’t really remember if there were inspirations or special motions
of the Holy Spirit. All I know is that I
decided for God and against my passions. One could think
that the decision was already made and that from then
on it was going to be easy. But nothing could
be further from the truth.

Then I had to
tell my parents. Now, given my experience of the past
few years, they couldn’t say that I didn’t know the
world. We went to meet Father Juan Pedro at the
Regnum Christi young men’s center to discuss it. When we
arrived and had just sat down, my mother asked, “Father,
what has happened? Is Juan taking drugs?” You can’t imagine
Father Juan Pedro’s look of puzzlement at that question. But
at that moment, my impatience left no room for reflection,
so I was the one who jumped in and blurted
out: “All I want is to know what my path
is, what God wants of me.”

When my
relatives and friends found out, they made a row about
it. The most ironic ones made bets about how many
weeks or days I would last in the seminary. My
little sister, Paulina, admitted that she had prayed a lot
for me, “but not that much.”

My entrance into
the novitiate was the start of a new life. It
has been a process of polishing a diamond in the
rough (a bit too rough, in my opinion) in order
to bring out its true value. Certainly, it is not
we who give that value to ourselves, but God.

Father Juan Carlos Rentería was born on December 23,
1974 in Guadalajara, Mexico. He entered the Legion of Christ
in September of 1994 in the novitiate of Monterrey, Mexico.
He completed his humanities studies in Salamanca, Spain; afterwards, he
went to the center of Thornwood, NY (United States) to
start his studies in philosophy. He has worked in the
formation of youth in Spain and Venezuela. He finished his
philosophy studies and got a bachelor’s degree in theology from
the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum in Rome, where he is
currently studying for his licentiate in theology.